Punjab Cabinet approved the Backward Status for Jats community

Who: Punjab Cabinet
What: approved the Backward Class (BC) status for the Jat and Jat Sikhs
When: 5 March 2014

The Punjab Cabinet approved the Backward Class (BC) status for the Jat and Jat Sikhs of the State on 5 March 2014. With this, Jats and Jat Sikhs will be the 69th and 70th community respectively to be included in the category.

The grant of BC status to the Jats and Jat Sikhs will enable them to get reservation in government jobs. Jats and Jat Sikhs of Punjab had been left out of the Union Cabinet’s decision because the Punjab government had failed to bring the community in the State BC list.
Recently, on 2 March 2014 the Union Cabinet decided to include the Jat community in the central list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in nine States. These are Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan.

To work out the modalities for the implementation of its decisions, the Cabinet has set up a Commission.

The Cabinet also decided to extend the benefits of reservation to the economically weaker persons from among the general categories. This reservation for economically weaker sections would be in addition to the reservations already in place and would not affect the existing quota of section.